Annual Parish Meetings

 

In Attendance: Cllr. John Bavister, Mr Roger Shead (Carlby Bowls Club), Cllrs. Ben Haines, Pete Holland, Ian Dair, Angela Cardew and Sue Robinson, Ruth Dickins (Playing fields committee), Amanda Pearson(Carlby Gardeners),  Steve Pearson(Carlby Village Hall Committee), Liz King, Wil Halford, Mel Butcher and Sarah Gresty(Clerk)

 

Apologies from Cllr. Bob Adams.

 

 

Cllr. John Bavister welcomed everyone to this open forum annual parish meeting.

 

a) Report by Roger Shead:  The Bowls Club is finally getting going again after a very strange year with very little play until recently. Fortunately most Members kept up their membership, despite very little play so giving the Club just enough income to maintain the green. However new equipment needed has diminished financial reserves.. No indoor play took place in the village hall through the winter but internal matches since May and now in June leagues and friendly matches have started and things are getting back to normal. However special rules about handling the jacks and sweepers still seem strange. The Club again has two teams playing in the Stamford League on Mondays and Fridays and friendlies on Wednesdays.  The Club has 35 members, but we are always looking for new members especially from Carlby.  

 

Like everyone else it has been an unprecedented time, with the hall being out of use over the past year and a half. In 2020 we were only able to hold committee meetings in January, February and September, which seems to be in the dim and distant past. However, we have made good use of the time and the government Covid grant that was made available to village halls.

Our first project was the refurbishment of the ladies toilets with new sanitary ware, non-slip flooring, a double sink vanity unit and new skirting boards. The gents toilets have had identical flooring, new water heater, new sanitary ware and new skirting boards.

The second project was improvements to the bar area. Here we have replaced all worktops and under-counter cupboards and storage units, a new sink and draining board, water heater and, to the delight of other groups, we now have a dishwasher!

The final refurbishment project was to replace the cumbersome kitchen and bar wooden shutters. These have been replaced with lightweight roller security shutters.

We feel sure all groups and hirers will appreciate and benefit from the above improvements, some of which have been on our ‘to do list’ for some time. I would like to say a big Thank You to our Treasurer, David Nelson, for all his hard work on these projects.

Like many other halls, a full Covid risk assessment was carried out last year and the hall is compliant for hiring out. Although the hall has not been in use for pub nights and hirings throughout this period, karate and line dancing classes have now resumed and St Stephens JAM Club hopes to return with effect from September. We will await updates from other regular groups in due course. We hope to reinstate the monthly pub/quiz nights but, given the current uncertainties surrounding Covid, we feel this may not be for a few more months yet.

 

c) Report by Amanda Pearson.  The last official meeting of the gardening group was way back in February 2020 although a few members of the group have met up in gardens when restrictions allowed. Gardeners have always known that gardening is good for you but now more people have enjoyed the benefits of gardening more than ever over the past 18 months.

Volunteers have carried out annual daffodil bulb planting each autumn with displays both on the main roadside verges and at the north end of the village. For the past two years, we have joined forces with volunteers from St Stephens, which has been a huge help. The displays this year gave some much-needed spring colour around the village so it was very disappointing that the council decided to mow the verges before the daffodils had died back so not sure how many will come back this year. Perhaps the PC could advise what could be done about this to prevent this happening again next year.

For the past 10 years, willing volunteers from the group have planted up the Carlby village sign with bedding plants for the summer and daffodils bulbs in the autumn for spring colour. This year it has a more naturalistic feel and is of more benefit to pollinators. 

We would like to focus more on benefits for wildlife with more relaxed and pollinator-friendly planting both in our gardens and ideally around Carlby. We are keen to support the Blue Campaign, which encourages gardeners and councils to help restore UK biodiversity by leaving areas unmown but managed - you may have seen some blue hearts on verges around the village. More details can be found online at bluecampaignhub.net

The Playing Fields committee have transformed areas of the field with wildflower planting and fruit trees with great success. Is there any opportunity for the village green to be left unmown to allow wildflowers and longer grass areas for wildlife with just the edges and a mown path through it. 

Until things are back to normal, it is difficult to predict how the group will continue as meetings usually take place in members’ homes. We have a garden talk to be held in the village hall planned for November (postponed from 2020) but, again, it remains uncertain if this will go ahead. 

 

d) Ruth Dickins gave an update of the playing fields committee’s activities over the past year.  

Equipment installed were: goal post, 2 benches, a balance beam and a seesaw.

Areas of wild flowers, some fruit trees had also been planted.

Present campaign (with leaflet drop to all villagers) To raise funding for a multi play piece of equipment, presently being crowd funded under the Calor Gas fund raising scheme, This is an expensive piece of equipment, The Playing field Committee have some monies in reserves however there may also need to contact local business to reach target funds for purchase.

A possible small dirt bike track is being researched.   The whole village will receive a voting slip and the Clerk will count the votes to see what numbers of villagers are in favour to this proposal.

 

e)Parochial Church Council – No report received

 

f)WI Sarah Gresty reported that the WI had continued with its meetings via zoom during the pandemic with various speakers providing interesting talks.  It is hoped to meet back in the hall in September if things progress well.   The WI still has a strong membership.

 

Cllr. John Bavister’s report: 

The previous meeting in the village hall was the 28 January 2020 and the previous Parish meeting was 28th May 2019   Noted from all of the minutes since the past Parish meeting

• From the 24 March 2020 our Parish Council meetings here in Carlby have been conducted by the media of Zoom. The last meeting in this phase was the 4th May 2021. 

 

• The playing field committee of trustees is now a quorum again and has a nominated financial office of Ruth Dickens. Many thanks must go to Angela for her persistence with the playing field restructuring. A Memorandum of intent with the playing field committee to commit £2,500 per annum for 3 years to enable confidence of planning.   

• Reported by our District Councillor, The SKDC cycle festival that took place was not deemed as a success as a method of generating income for the District. More of a cost incurred for the minority. 

• Our district Councillor Chris Benn resigned due to ill heath, Thanks to our County Councillor Bob Adams for helping out while we awaited the voting and election of our new District Councillor Penny Robins. Have had no contact yet.

• Sadly, the council has lost Roger Easton who passed away due to illness. Who was a great doer of projects and an immense contribution to the development of the neighbourhood plan.

• Poppies have been displayed each year during the remembrance period and thanks must go to Paul Beard and his helpers for putting them up, taking down and storage.

• No further movement or contact over the pre application plans for the past EFI site now in the ownership of Agri-Lincs. Update, since drafting the report Agri-Linc have responded stating that according to developers the site needs to have at least 60 dwellings built to be viable! So they have declined to sell the site and revert to their original plan of developing the area for an agricultural machinery outlet.

• The Friendly Club closed its doors due to insufficient interest and thanks goes to all of those involved over the years.

• There have been three controversial planning applications within the village. ( Vine House, Chestnuts Barn and the infill next to Fenten’ old cottage), all plans can be reviewed on the SKDC web site.

• A village biodiversity group has been started by Wil Halford and the council have a biodiversity statement adopted. Thanks to Ian Dair for the draft such.

• The Councils annual targets are continued to be reviewed and followed

• The Council has a rolling three-year financial perspective which drives the precept demand.

• A new web site mandate was launched by Lincolnshire CC and involved a heavy amount of work lead by the clerk Sarah Gresty 

• A mobile post office from Morton is in the village on Fridays for a trial run, and its retention to support Carlby will be a result of its usage.

• The council has requested two additional refuse bins, to date this request has been rejected by SKDC

• The council has repeated its request for parts of Carlby with its listed building to be a conservation area, again rejected by SKDC.

• However, a project initiated by Ian Dair to have the unique Carlby Dry stone walls registered ‘a material consideration’ with Lincolnshire heritage has been launched.

• During this period there have been changes in the make-up of the seven seats allocated to the Carlby Parish Council.

o Roger Easton past and Pete Holland has been co-opted

o Isabel Robson left the village and Sue Robinson has been co-opted

o Steve Markham has resigned and there are two persons interested in joining the Council. a co-option can take place at the July meeting of the council.

 

• Immense thanks go to Steve Markham for all of his manual and verbal input and a noted reference that Steve is continuing to manage the reactive speed sign and report on the Defibrillator bi monthly

• All of the above-mentioned documents can be read on our new web site.

 

2. Ragstone Walling in Carlby

Cllr. Ian Dair gave an outline on a proposed project to list all the ragstone walls in the village as they were an important characteristic of the village.  Recently a meeting took place with Heritage Links who advised on the criteria for qualification.

Cllr. Dair would formally put forward a resolution to the next Parish Council meeting for consideration to proceed with this project as he felt it would be of value alongside the neighbourhood plan and raised the profile of the unique characteristic especially for material consideration of planning applications. 

 

3. Bins in the Village. A request for a covered bin outside the village hall was suggested and if possible additional bins especially in view of the increase in dog ownership.

 

4. Playing Field.  Wild flowers everyone thought the planting on the playing field was looking very nice, discussion regarding a notice for dog owners to pick up after them was discussed.

 

5. Proposal for a TPO on False Acacia tree opposite village hall.    Cllr. Dair to investigate further.

 

• County Councillor’s Report – there were none.

 

• PCSO’s Report – there were none • Local police presence seems to have disappeared

 

Meeting Closed @ 20.56